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Covid and the private hospitals: the great bed rip-off
To ease the pressure on the NHS, private hospital chains were given state money to take care of non-Covid cases — the problem was, they only did half the work, explains SOLOMON HUGHES

IN 2020 the NHS signed a £2 billion deal with the big private hospital chains to get extra help during the Covid pandemic. Matt Hancock described the deal as “great news” for the NHS and the “hospitals and staff doing everything they can to combat coronavirus.”

But it turned out to be mostly great news for private health businesses, who were paid for all their beds but only used about half for the NHS. They had all their costs met by the public sector but carried on doing paid-for private operations with the other half of their now completely subsidised capacity. This is one of the biggest private-sector Covid rip-offs.

In March 2020 the NHS signed a deal negotiated with the Independent Healthcare Providers Network, paying around £2bn for the entire capacity of England’s 200 private hospitals to help with the Covid pandemic.

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